After all, it is only natural that it should be so.
An artist who is not a good colorist must (unless he is blinded by conceit) have some suspicion of his deficiency, and would naturally endeavor by a more elaborate palette to remedy his shortcomings, just as some of our bad cooks endeavor to improve their cuisine by a liberal use of made sauces. With artists as with cooks, the remedy is unsuccessful; in both cases it is taste that is wanted, and not a multiplicity of ingredients.
If a student has a germ of feeling for color, he may develop it into a plant of respectable growth. He will probably never become a great colorist, but he may at any rate learn to attain a certain degree of harmony and propriety, qualities which are not always found in the works of noted colorists.
I would strongly deprecate the habit of painting pictures up to exhibition pitch. Paint them up to the pitch you see in nature, and you will have quite enough to do. Exasperation is not force, and although a soberly-colored work may be eclipsed on the exhibition walls by a dazzling neighbor, yet it will more than hold its own when removed from the glare and glitter of its surroundings.
Color, as understood by many people, means violent contrasts of reds, blues, and yellows. Now, I am far from saying that strong contrasts and positive colors are always inharmonious. We have (even in our climate) plenty of wild flowers to prove the contrary. The scarlet poppy, the blue corn flower, the common yellow buttercup, are all as positive in color as red, blue, and yellow well can be, but the green stalk and leaves of each plant harmonize perfectly with the flower, and the contrast, though strong, is never offensive. The kind of contrasts I am deprecating are perhaps best known by the epithet “vulgar.” Look at the cheap colored glass windows which abound in our country churches, and which are generally much admired by the congregation. As a rule, the more crude the colors, the more grateful are the farmers and their wives to the donors of these windows for giving them something cheerful to look at during the service. We need not go into the country for specimens of vulgar taste in color. I never pass a London pillar letter-box without an uncomfortable feeling, particularly after it has been newly painted.
The post-office authorities are certainly not bound to educate the eye of the British public, and their object in painting these post-boxes vermilion was of course to make them more conspicuous, just as a red flag is used to indicate danger. But the daily press, and particularly that sheet which claims the largest circulation in the world, praised the authorities for “giving us a bit of color” to refresh the eye. Had these letter-boxes been painted of a laky Indian red, or of a bronze color, they would have been unobjectionable, but no one would have thought of commending them as “bits of color.”
Again, if we consider the scheme of clothing the volunteer regiments in scarlet, and try to account for the enthusiasm with which certain corps have hailed the innovation, we shall find that the “bit of color” is at the bottom of it. It can hardly be supposed that the gallant East-end volunteers wish to be mistaken for militiamen; it must be that the scarlet cloth is thought becoming, both by themselves and their female relatives. If I am not mistaken, the West-end corps, such as the Queen’s, the Inns of Court, and especially the artists, will be very loth to give up their gray uniforms and don the national red.
I am afraid that the average Englishman’s taste in color (though much improved of late years) is still but little more refined than the West African’s. If he no longer buys hideous wall-papers and vulgar carpets, it is not that he dislikes them, but that he does not know where to get them, so great has been the improvement in our manufactures. If we turn from the English Philistine to the English artist, we find ourselves at the opposite pole. He has often such a horror of loud, vulgar tints, that he is apt to fall into the affectation of painting on too subdued a scale, and I would caution you against this affectation. Truth is not necessarily dull, nor is simplicity monochromatic. There is no danger of the general public, which delights in the red coats of our soldiers, and thinks the crudest colored dyes the prettiest, encouraging you to paint sad olive pictures. The danger comes from the select few who are gifted with æsthetic tastes, and who, having recently awakened to the fact that crude contrasts do not constitute color, fall into the opposite extreme, and praise whatever is negative and colorless.
The dismal view of nature seems to me an unhealthy view; and although it may be commended as a reaction against vulgar, tawdry color, the art which it tends to foster is morbid and unsound.
Beauty of color is a much more subtle and indefinable quality than beauty of form. We are all pretty well agreed that the antique is the nearest approach to perfection of form which has ever been made, but we are by no means agreed about color. Some will think that Titian was the greatest colorist that ever lived, some Velasquez, some Paul Veronese, and some Rembrandt; and it is not only individual opinions that differ, but the collective opinion of the age. We all are familiar with instances of pictures which are now highly prized for their color, but which within the present century failed to gain admission to any exhibition.